GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)

[DLG817]

RE: GHA Group (Bryn Melyn, Vale Travel + Others)
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GHA Ceased Trading – 1 week on – a summary

It is now nearly a week since GHA ceased trading.

Fleet News

To date the vehicles at Shrewsbury and Tarvin depot have been brought into Ruabon. It was intended to start emptying Winsford depot today. However I understand that room at Ruabon is becoming sparse and there may be a delay in emptying Ruthin depot. A small number of former GHA staff have been hired by the Administrators, mainly mechanics, and repairs under way before the collapse are being completed. The process of valuing the vehicles is starting.

When I spoke to the administrators on Tuesday they were not too clear on how the fleet will be disposed of. A specialised firm may be employed to arrange this or an on-line auction may be organised. This may take place in the next week or two. I did make them aware that there may be interest from enthusiasts in rescuing some of the vehicles and whilst they did not make any specific indications that they will agree to any such requests they are prepared at this stage to receive indications of interest. Hopefully as a minimum they will keep interested persons informed of when any sale may take place. They indicated that they will not be able to discuss the value of any particular vehicle. Their principal duty, of course, is to the creditors. To register an interest please email Mark Blackman by using his name with a full stop in between @uk.gt.com (full email address omitted to avoid email trolls)

Vehicles owned by the local authorities have left. Three of the Optare Versas and the three Solos. Denbighshire CC drivers took them on behalf of Flintshire CC last week and they are currently being stored until their future is decided. There is no immediate plan to place these with another operator and it could be that they may be subsequently auctioned. Despite reports to the contrary the Traws Cymru vehicles are not owned by local authorities or the Welsh Government and were still at Ruabon. Versa YJ09OTS was off the road last week following RTC damage.

I have been informed by Charlie at GHA that the last service conducted by GHA was the 11.00pm from Barmouth and was in Solo YJ59GHA The driver had left Wrexham at 8.25pm knowing he may not get paid for this journey. The vehicle still has the final destination displayed – PHOTO LINK


Routes

I have attempted to tabulate a list of all the former GHA routes with an indication of which operator and from what date they are now operated. This will be updated as best as I can and can be found – LINK. Please let me know if any errors or omissions are found.

The success of obtaining operators to run the old routes has varied between the Local Authorities. The first priority for the LA's was to organise the necessary school transport. A number of the routes are being run before the route is registered and in some cases by minibuses and therefore in such cases no fares are being collected. Some routes have now been registered and some are actually being run commercially.

Both D Jones and Son, Acrefair and Arriva have registered and are running the 5 Wrexham to Llangollen service. The former is running at a 20 minute frequency (as per GHA timetable) and Arriva half hourly. D Jones has also registered the 40/41 Wrexham Industrial Service. To assist with the running of these services they have purchased 3 ex Webber Versas – YJ60LTA, YJ60LTF and YJ60LTN. The latter arrived this afternoon.

The above are the only former GHA routes being operated in the Wrexham area (excluding the T3 Barmouth). A number of these former services were commercially run but some were subsidised or partially subsidised including the 146 Whitchurch and the 34 Travalyn. Over a dozen services are currently not being run in Wrexham.

Most service in Shropshire have been covered except the Bridgnorth town service. A large number of service in East Cheshire have been covered and there is just one not covered.

All services in West Cheshire are now covered as are most services in Flintshire. Initially both Arriva and Stagecoach were operating the SP1/2 but the Arriva website have shown a recent update that they will no longer be running this service. Despite there being no indication on the Flintshire website a Townlynx vehicle was seen in Wrexham displaying X9.

Some rural services have not yet found a replacement operator in Denbighshire but a large number of services were covered quite quickly. Arriva are now working the newly numbered X51 from Denbigh to Wrexham. M and H Coaches are now running their former services 76 Denbigh to Graigfechan (via Ruthin and Llandyrnog) and the 66 Town and Henllan service. To assist them they now have Optare Solo SR YJ62FZD from Dawsons Rentals – PHOTO LINK